TOOL KIT TABLE OF CONTENTS
Sermon Passage breakdown for Sundays
Marriage, Sexuality and Gender: Deep Dive + FAQs
This section of FC is Paul’s direct response to specific reports about the Corinthian church (1:11) and specific questions they asked Paul in a letter (see 7:1). The topics in this section were just as relevant then, in Paul’s day, as they are today. But obviously the context and character of the conversation has shifted and expanded. In order to lead our groups and conversations well, we need to be conversant on these topics in both a biblical and a unified manner. These two points are our highest values.
Let’s start here. Although the subject of marriage obviously overlaps sexuality and gender, it will be important to get our biblical bearings in marriage, God’s vision for marriage, the parameters of marriage and how God uses the picture of marriage as the primary illustration of the gospel message.
The starting point is the triune nature of God, seen in several ways from the very opening words of Genesis. This plural nature within the one Creator God is one of the explanations of the plural “us” and “our” in Genesis 1:26-28, “Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness…” …God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them…” This is perfectly confirmed in Genesis 2 when, the scene now rewound and shifted slightly and zoomed in, it is “not good” that the single male is alone in the garden (2:18). This is because, alone, he did not “image” God as He was intended. All of this is chronicled before sin enters the world in order to illustrate the connection between gender (male and female), marriage and God’s image. Thus God created woman out of man and the covenant of marriage - one man and one woman becoming one flesh - was instituted (2:22-24).
The rest of the Torah (the first five books of the OT) reiterates and confirms this design perfectly. It is again restated in the narratives of kings and the oracles of the prophets, particularly in God’s many illustrative words and analogies of Himself as the loving, strong, supportive husband and Israel as His bride/wife, disobedient, idolatrous and adulterous.
By the time of Jesus’ ministry, as expected, He fully aligns and restates the chief Genesis texts, marriage of man and woman, as well as the covenant of marriage. Like the Father, Jesus uses the wedding and marriage picture as an analogy and parable for Himself as the Groom/husband and believers/the church as His bride/wife. The Revelation Jesus gave to John bears this out in the final chapters in the marriage supper of the Lamb of God.
Paul and the other apostolic writers of the remaining New Testament offer not one ounce of difference or equivocation. The thorough condemnation of heterosexual sins such as lust, adultery, promiscuity, premarital sex and the like confirm God’s design from the negative. Further negative is homosexuality, both man-man and woman-woman, the clear condemnation of which also corroborates God’s intended design.
Moses (Num 5:11-31; Deut 22:13-30; 24:1-5), Jesus (Matt 5:31-32; 19:1-12) and Paul (Rom 7:2-3; 1 Cor 7; Eph 5; Col 3) all speak of the tragic reality of divorce, the dissolution of a marriage between one man and one woman. They agree although their reasons for “allowable” divorce are not exactly identical. Yet even in this sad allowance, divorce remains tragic because it divides one flesh when one man has joined to one woman for one lifetime.
Make no mistake, this conversation revolves around imago dei, creation and God’s design for gender, marriage, sex and family. This is the foundation. There is no other. These central issues are revealed in God’s Word. In the wider cultural conversation, this foundation is unrecognized, illegitimized or fully attacked from any and all conceivable angles. Therefore, in order to enter this conversation well, with the right equipment, trained and ready for the many challenges of leading and shepherding, we must survey this foundation with clarity, resilience and faith.
This conversation is not simply argument, data, statistics and strategy. It is very personal, and it should be. Ultimately our discussion is about the hearts, minds and lives of real people; each of them an individual for whom Christ Jesus died. Ultimately, we must see those who identify as gay as Christ would, as people, not an issue. In my neighborhood, in our circle of friends and in our extended family, this subject has touched our lives as well. It’s always personal. It should be. When this conversation begins to drift away from real people with names and stories, we are in danger of losing something vital, something to which Jesus seemed to hold fast.
“These are people with faces, people with names, often Christian people, and whatever we conclude about the larger issues their stories represent, we must never lose sight of their individual struggles, their individual pain, their faces. If we neglect faces, we neglect the gospel. The gospel is powerful medicine, but ultimately it is not administered by volumes or votes or verdicts. It is administered by a single trembling hand holding up a spoon before the willing face of another.” Thomas E. Schmidt, Straight and Narrow?
Sex is both more and less important than the world says it is. Less, in that it is not central. More, in that it is actually Divine. The subject of homosexuality is also more and less important than our culture says it is. Less, because it is certainly not a major theme in Holy Scripture, although when the Scripture does speak, it is crystal clear. It is also more important, because God’s Church is being asked to accept it wholesale.
Today, arguments and conversations abound on the subject of homosexuality, gender identity and sex. From the Supreme Court to Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas, everyone seems to be speaking opinion and fact, often blurring the line between the two. Large church denominations have split over the issue of homosexuality and the ordination or those who identify as gay. Other high-profile churches, Christian leaders and authors have also changed their view on the issue, now accepting gay lifestyles and marriages and “holy” or acceptable in God’s eyes. National news and local newspapers regularly feature the topic.